To say Angela Whyte is completely invested in the virtually impossible seems sadly correct and wildly cynical all at once.

She quit her coaching job at Washington State to focus full time on training. She is emptying her savings and feeling every pinch, living with a roommate in Toronto, where life isn’t cheap.

She is 39 years old and hopes, strike that, is determined to be at the Tokyo Olympics, representing Canada in either the heptathlon or the 100-metre hurdles, perhaps both, as long as she’s dreaming.

“Tall order, but I’m up for it because I’m just crazy enough,” she said last weekend. “Or maybe that’s senile. I don’t know.”

What she does know for sure is why she wants to go to Tokyo as a 40-year-old.

“I want to give myself the opportunity to be one of the oldest athletes who has made an Olympics, especially in a power, speed event. That’s my goal. That’s always been my goal. And sometimes you’ve got to take some knocks to get there. It’s just unfortunate because I was hoping I could come off a rough 2018 to a better 2019 but it’s not where it is right now.”

Indeed. Less than a year out, she is both agonizingly close and miles away. Her quest suffered a serious setback at the Canadian Track and Field Championships in Montreal on Saturday. The hamstring injury that has bothered her since last season took her out of the hurdles heats. Had she competed, and run the World Championship standard of 12.98 seconds, she would have been on track for Doha, Qatar in the fall, and back on the Athletics Canada radar.

Was it even possible? She ran 12.85 in 2016, but hasn’t been faster since.

Fact is, she couldn’t run in Montreal, so she won’t be on the worlds team. Worse, she isn’t eligible for federal carding money. And if she can’t shake that injury, the future isn’t getting brighter.

But she isn’t halfway into this thing. She is all in, against all odds.

“In my mind, that’s something to be encouraged,” said Athletics Canada head coach Glenroy Gilbert. “That’s what dreams are for, right? She wants to be there, she believes she can be there. Maybe it’s not necessarily about being competitive when she’s there as it is about achieving the standard to be on that team.

“In this sport anything is possible and that’s what motivates athletes to just keep pressing. It’s not over until it’s over for them, especially with the Olympics less than a year away. She’s got visions of being there in 2020. I think it’s completely possible. She’s a talented young woman.”

Gilbert is 50, and was a sprinter on the Canadian team, along with Whyte, at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton. That was Whyte’s senior international debut. She has been at six other worlds, the latest in 2017; five Commonwealth Games, the latest in 2018 when she was fifth in the heptathlon; and three Olympics, the latest in 2016. She either will not, or cannot stop competing.

“On any given day when I’m feeling good, I don’t feel 39, you know what I mean,” she said. “I know it’s there, it’s just a matter of how am I going to make it work? I quit my job for this. I’m not making any money. I’m spending all my savings.”

The realization hits and she starts to cry. She wipes the tears away, apologizes and starts again.

“I was coaching at Washington State University. It wasn’t working at the time. As I say, it’s hard to pursue your dream when you’re helping others pursue theirs. After 2016, I wasn’t really happy with the end result, so you know what, let’s just try to go for it. I made that decision. I’m sticking by it. I don’t regret it. I’ve got some thinking to do on how I’m going to make next year work.”

Mentally. Physically. Financially. It’s all a ball of string.

“Could I get a job? Yeah, I can get a job, but what’s the sense of getting a job that’s going to be a detriment to what I’m trying to do? The (crappy) part is, I have a Master’s degree in sports psychology and I could get a job, but I don’t want to get something that is going to get in the way of me pursuing this kind of far out there dream. It’s going to be worth it.”

She knows her father Evert would help financially, but she doesn’t want to ask. Nor will she try to tap into people’s emotions through a crowdfunding campaign.

“I don’t want a pity party. I want to be able to do this standing on my own two feet. I know that’s not always possible, so I’m going to have to look into what I can do.”

She hasn’t had corporate sponsorship for almost a decade, and has made adjustments accordingly, but it’s not so easy now.

“I live a very spartan life, especially when I was in the states. I was in smaller communities and it was easier. I was working. I was coaching. I did have income. I have zero now.”

Her chances of success in the hurdles are not good. She thinks she started to trend downward after a great 2013 season that saw her finish sixth at worlds. She hasn’t gotten out of the heats at worlds or the Olympics since. But she hasn’t lost hope, either.

“The goal has always been 2020. As time went on and I made the Commonwealth Games team in the heptathlon, who would have thought, I was like, you know what, it’s 2018, it’s only two more years, I can do this. It’s just going to be a little more difficult is all.”

The hamstring injury made it even more difficult last weekend. But the hamstring is not connected to the head or the heart.

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